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Was told that FICA rates are going back up from 4.2% to 6.2%, so they are withholding the additional 2% from my check. I found the below link from September (with update) - before the Fiscal Cliff issue. Is this a separate issue, and my taxes are still going up after all?

For the years 2011 and 2012, the Social Security tax rate paid by employees is 4.2% instead of the normal 6.2%. Employers still pay the full 6.2% rate. Thus for 2011 and 2012, the combined Social Security tax rate is 10.4%. Self-employed persons will pay this 10.4% combined rate on their earnings. This special payroll tax holiday was enacted as part of the Tax Relief Act of 2010, then extended through February 2012 by HR 3765, and then further extended through the end of 2012 by HR 3630. The reduced Social Security tax rate was not renewed for 2013 as part of the American Taxpayer Relief Act. For 2013, the Social Security tax reverts to its normal tax rate of 6.2% for employees, 6.2% for employers, and 12.4% for self-employed persons.

The first ~$110,000 is subject to FICA withholding. Provided you (assuming single taxpayer, not married) are making less than $400,000/year, your top marginal tax rate will not increase (the marginal tax rate means any income above $400,000 is taxed at the highest rate) compared to last year.

In addition, the AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax) is now indexed for inflation. Previously it was not, and required an annual modification by Congress to reduce the number of people affected by the AMT.

The payroll tax cut became a centerpiece of the jobs plan Obama unveiled in September – and of a re-election strategy that seeks to cast his GOP foes as protectors of the rich and out of touch with the worries of working families.

I know he was pushing the extension, what I wasn't sure about was the origin of the idea of cutting the payroll tax in the first place.

Yep, in 2009, the Republicans pushed for it, Republicans offered a plan that would have reduced the payroll tax to 0. That's one of the reasons their later opposition to the president incorporating this idea -- albeit above 0 percent -- seemed so ridiculous.

Except the funding was completely different, and the original proposal was supposed to last only 2 months, and paid for by TARPS funds. It was a way to funnel the TARP funds to the rest of America.

His bill, he says, gave taxpayers a two month break from paying any taxes – Social Security, Medicare, income taxes – not just Social Security taxes, and not just a 2 percentage point reduction. His bill was paid for through un-used TARP funds, so Social Security and Medicare funding streams were not disrupted. And his bill “didn’t pit one group of Americans against any other,” he says.

income tax rates went down from the rates enacted in 1993 by Clinton and democrats, from 39.6% to 35% for earned incomes above $250k. They had been lowered to 28% earlier by Reagan for something of a flat tax system where all income regardless of its source was taxed at 28% from 1987 to 1993.

Long term capital gains rates were lowered to 20% by Clinton (from the forementioned 28%) and lowered further by Bush to 15%. Part of the Bush tax cuts also made dividend income taxed at 15% along with other capital gains income instead of as normal income where it would be taxed higher.

The Estate tax, or Death Tax, had been taken about half of your wealth not given to charity or your spouse after the first $600k before Bush, and 45% of the same after the first $3.5 million after Bush in 2009 before disappearing altogether for 2010 before reappearing in 2011 with the first $3.5 million exempted from the tax at the 50% rate. Congress changed it in 2010 so that it would be 35% after $5 million, and the fiscal cliff deal raised that rate to 40%.

The estate tax is a curious example of how Bush wanted to have his cake and eat it too. His goal was to eliminate it, but if he were to actually make permanent the repeal of the estate tax, he would've had to have paid for it, because PAYGO was still in effect in 2001. In order to cheat PAYGO, he had his tax cuts phase out after 2010 so that the long term effect to the structural deficit wouldn't be evident to the CBO (which has to score the bill based on it actually being phased out). This is why after 2010, the estate tax would reappear at the 'permanent' rate of 50%, based on pre-existing law.

Eh, it's "due to Obama" but the cut was also "due to Obama". It was a temporary cut to the taxes employees pay into Social Security. Note that this is a Social Security tax increase, not a federal income tax increase.

Boehner's camp were the ones who proposed (put on the table) the expiration of the tax holiday, not the Democrats, and certainly not Obama. It was part of their desire to increase the taxes on the middle class as the Bush tax cuts expired as well. Sort of a, "ha ha well fuck you then if you won't let us run rampant still."

And/or he could have convinced Republicans to cut spending as well, just not in the same areas that Democrats didn't want to cut. It's all a matter of if those cuts come from military spending or the social safety net.

While any President can technically be blamed for every federal action during their term, this tax increase occurred because of both the Executive and Legislative Branches. An attempt to solely blame it on President Obama is Partisan Bias.

Seriously. When they sent the letter it mentioned the Obama administration three times as the reason for the "increase" in taxes. I wanted to reply to all saying that it wasn't an increase, just going back to the way it was. And "thanks to Obama" we should be happy for the two year tax holiday which gave us that 2% discount.